Events from the year 1943 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal government
President: Franklin D. Roosevelt (D-New York) Vice President: Henry A. Wallace (D-Iowa) Chief Justice: Harlan F. Stone (New York) Speaker of the House of Representatives: Sam Rayburn (D-Texas) Senate Majority Leader: Alben W. Barkley (D-Kentucky) Congress: 77th (until January 3), 78th (starting January 3)
Events
January
January 1 – Project Y, the Manhattan Project's secret laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, for development and production of the first atomic bombs under the direction of J. Robert Oppenheimer, begins operations. January 4 – Culbert Olson, 29th Governor of California, is succeeded by Earl Warren. January 11 – The United States and United Kingdom give up territorial rights in China. January 14 The Casablanca Conference, where Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the first president of the United States to travel by airplane while in office (Miami, Florida to Morocco to meet with Winston Churchill to discuss World War II). Aircraft carrier USS Independence is commissioned. January 15 – The world's largest office building, The Pentagon, is dedicated in Arlington, Virginia. January 23 Duke Ellington plays at New York City's Carnegie Hall for the first time. Critic and commentator Alexander Woollcott suffers an eventually fatal heart attack during a regular broadcast of the CBS Radio roundtable program "People's Platform".
February
February 3 – The legendary Four Chaplains of the U.S. Army are drowned when their ship () is struck by a German torpedo. February 5 – Howard Hughes's Western The Outlaw, starring Jane Russell, is released for a week prior to Motion Picture Production Code censors requiring its withdrawal from distribution. February 6 – Walt Disney Productions' sixth feature film, Saludos Amigos, is released. It is the first of six package films they would release throughout the remainder of the 1940s. February 7 – WWII: It is announced that shoe rationing will go into effect in the US in two days. February 8 – WWII – Battle of Guadalcanal: United States forces defeat Japanese troops. February 11 – General Dwight D. Eisenhower is selected to command the Allied armies in Europe. February 14 – Battle of the Kasserine Pass: German General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps launch an offensive against Allied defenses in Tunisia; it is the United States' first major battle defeat of the war. February 17 – Aircraft carrier USS Lexington is commissioned. February 20 – American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies. February 25 – Aircraft carrier USS Princeton is commissioned. February 27 – The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, explodes, killing 74 men.
March
March 2 – WWII: Battle of the Bismarck Sea – United States and Australian forces sink Japanese convoy ships. March 4 – The 15th Academy Awards, hosted by Bob Hope, are presented at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, with William Wyler's Mrs. Miniver winning Outstanding Motion Picture. The film also receives 12 and 6 respective nominations and awards, with Wyler also winning Best Director. March 8 – WWII: American forces are attacked by Japanese troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville, in a battle that lasts five days. March 12 – Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man is premiered by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. March 13 – WWII: On Bougainville, Japanese troops end their assault on American forces at Hill 700. March 26 – WWII – Battle of the Komandorski Islands: In the Aleutian Islands, the battle begins when United States Navy forces intercept Japanese troops attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska. March 31 – Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! opens on Broadway, heralds a new era in "integrated" stage musicals, becomes an instantaneous stage classic, and goes on to be Broadway's longest-running musical up to that time (1948).
April
April 13 – The Jefferson Memorial is dedicated on the 200th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's birthday. The bronze statue is added in 1947. April 27 – The U.S. Federal Writers' Project is shuttered.